Advance Decision Making...a thought for the New Year

Here's a section from Bill Hybels' book WHO YOU ARE WHEN NO ONE'S LOOKING. When trying to do the things we should, and avoid the things we shouldn't be involved in, discipline is a hard thing to master...SO, as we all step into the New Year, make advance decisions about how you will live (and how you won't):

MP

Advance Decision Making

Once you make up your mind that the only decent way to live is to schedule the pain and the tough challenges first so that you can enjoy the pleasure, the rewards, and the payoff later, then you have to take an important practical step. You must make advance decisions as to how you are going to practice discipline in the various dimensions of your life.

For instance, physical health is a dimension that is very important to me. I come from a family with chronic heart problems on both sides. Two uncles on one side and two uncles on the other had heart attacks and died before they were fifty. My dad died at fifty-three. And trouble started showing up in my medical reports when I was fifteen. So, for me, there is no playing games with my health. I know I need to do something about it.

I understand intellectually that I must first endure the pain of running and weightlifting if I am going to experience the satisfaction of feeling well and being healthier. That is, I understand discipline. But understanding alone is not enough to improve my health; I must put my beliefs into practice. I practice discipline when I make the decision, in advance, that Monday through Friday at 3:30 I will leave the office and go to the health club to work out.

I made the decision several years ago, and I regularly write it on my calendar. Still, every day at about 3:15 my body starts sending signals: "You don't want to work out today. You're a little sore down here, a little tired up there. You're awfully busy in your work. You really don't want to leave now, do you?" A big part of me does not want to work out, you see, and so we start this little argument.

"Yeah, well, I should go."

"Oh, but you can skip a day now and then. After all, you don't want to turn into a fanatic."

So goes the debate. If every day at 3:30 I made the decision whether or not to go work out, I would not work out very often. When it came right down to the moment of packing up and leaving, with all those emotions and voices converging on me, I would probably cave in most of the time. But I practice advance decision making. Because I have already decided to go to the club, I ignore arguments against going, no matter how persuasive they may sound.

"Sorry," I say to my body, "I'd like to hear you out, but I can't do anything about it. It's already been decided. It's on my calendar. You're not going to reverse the decision. It's done." My body may groan, but it gets itself to the weight room. Advance decision making has become a powerful way to implement the practice of discipline in my daily life.